Tarran: A Human Mess

About the author:
Who am I? That's a tough one. I'm...complicated, first of all. I'm contradictory, usually quite cautious, but will go after the things I REALLY want. I let my past and present, as well as any and all thoughts about my future affect my work.
View profile »

Tarran stood alone in the tall grass outside of his clan encampment, poised to strike his prey when it passed him once more. As the tall, slight figure of a beautiful doe came into his view, he leaped and stabbed his teeth into the creature's throat, trying to kill it quickly. When the body went limp, he grabbed it by the neck and began dragging it back towards his tent. It was a slightly comical sight to others, he was sure: his short, thin arms wrapped around the deer's neck like a length of rope, and he had to struggle to haul it, bit by bit, to his home, where he would butcher and eat it.

He walked into a familiar face; that of his old friend, Krimmtu. Krimmtu looked at him uneasily, saying, "You've done it again, haven't you? You killed another of the king's animals?"

"No, you fool," snapped Tarran, exasperated with his friend's foolishness, "I got this from the other forest, on the opposite end of the encampment."

"Oh..." the other creature was silent for a koment, before saying, "Of course, that's right. Our hunting grounds are protected by the other clans on that side of the country."

Tarran looked at Krimmtu pointedly for a second longer, then continued hauling the carcass towards his home. Soon, he heard the sound of feet tramping by obnoxiously outside the encampment: humans. Only they walked so clumsily as to make that kind of noise. He rushed out and pounced onto the neck of the first human to come into his sight, a tall man, standing almost four feet taller than Tarran himself, who was just about three and a half feet tall, and who wore the Tyrant's royal colors, bearing a sword at his side. He appeared to be just and average soldier, not looking too thrilled about his apparent patrol, and Tarran didn't think twice about disposing of the man with his dagger. The Tyrant oppressed Tarran's people, the Dhrezhin, or Trasen as the humans would spell it, and regularly killed them by tromping through their encampments and burning them to the ground. Survivors were told to move on to a new location, and it was suggested that some of the outlying territories were quite nice; in other words, the human ruler wanted them gone, either dead or otherwise. Tarran had no problem with destroying one of his servants with his fine weapon.

The dagger had been Tarran's first weapon. He had been taught how to weave the magic into the metal for a purer, more lethal tool. Tarran had chosen a simple enchantment for a simple weapon. He had bound the properties of a poison into the blade, so that the metal would always retain the deadly toxin's power. He reveled in his kill for a moment, standing over the body in victorious excitement, then heaved the corpse towards his home. He wound up storing the man's body in his tent all day before tossing it into the small stream outside the encampment. Tarran despised the human ruler of this realm. So long as he was in power, and Tarran remained alive, no soldiers would be safe near this encampment.

Select a previous page...

Note: Keep in mind that the From: field of the email message sent by this form will contain your email address,
and will therefore be available to the recipient. If you're not comfortable with this, please
close this window.